What Was DMXs Net Worth Before His Passing?
During his two-decade-long career, DMX sold an astounding 74 million records worldwide, with hits including “Ruff Ryder’s Anthem,” “X Gon’ Give It to Ya,” “Where The Hood At,” and “Party Up.” What most people didn’t know was that DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, didn’t just rap the lyrics to some of his biggest songs, he was also a songwriter and producer.
With dozens of accolades and accomplishments under his belt, however, it came as a surprise to fans that after the rapper’s untimely death on April 9. It’s no secret that the father of six had dealt with his fair share of run-ins with the law over the years, such as the time he pled guilty to a single count of $1.7 million tax fraud in 2017 — which led him to a prison sentence the following year — missed child support payments, to name a few.
What’s undeniable was that while DMX was an incredible talent in the music industry, a string of bad financial decisions, a bad record deal, along an ongoing drug addiction that plagued him all the way to his death saw his earnings disappear in a very short number of years.
DMX’s Net Worth
In April 2021, DMX’s net worth was valued to be around $1 million, though it should be stressed that this figure was calculated prior to the skyrocketing sales and streaming numbers that erupted following the news of the “I Miss You” star’s death.
In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, DMX was generating one of the highest revenues for his former record label Def Jam, and while it’s unclear how much money he made during his time signed under their roster, with over 70 million records sold, it’s fair to assume he made a significant amount in sales and publishing. Or did he?
His 2000 hit “Party Up” sold over 3 million units worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling songs of his career, with only DMX and producer Swizz Beatz named under the songwriting credits. In other words, that song alone would have made the Romeo Must Die actor a fortune.
His third studio album, …And Then There Was X, remains his highest-selling album, with sales surpassing 5 million in the US, with another 2 million sold across the globe.
Needless to say, DMX was definitely rolling in the dough.
But as previously mentioned, a lot of major setbacks in the rapper’s life came due to bad spending habits. DMX battled a drug addiction prior, during, and after his rise to superstardom, and one thing that’s become a common theme in Hollywood is that when a celebrity is dealing with addiction with nobody there to intervene, the money will start to decline.
We’ve previously seen this with Whitney Houston, who was said to have dealt with her own drug addiction throughout her career, which later led her net worth to plummet to an all-time low by 2009 — the same year she would stage her comeback with her seventh and final album, I Look to You.
In 2018, DMX was sentenced to one year behind bars for failing to pay tax on his income earned from 2002 to 2005, and from 2010 to 2015. If that wasn’t bad enough, a judge also ordered him t pay back $2.29 million to the US government.
But given that DMX was also embroiled in numerous court cases concerning missed child support payments, one had to wonder how he was going to remunerate the money owed to the government while making up for stalled payments for his kids.
In June 2015, he was jailed after incurring a $400,000 lump sum in months of unpaid child support installments.
In the past, DMX had vented his frustration regarding Def Jam, who he claimed had robbed him out of tens of millions of dollars.
“Everything is an advance,” DMX said. “But they’ll offer it to you. ‘Hey, we were looking at the new Range Rover. We thought it’d be a great idea if we got it for you.’ And they’ll get it for you, then you look on your PNL report, you’ve got $80,000. You end up thanking yourself.”
“I refuse to give another dime to that record label, to Def Jam,” DMX said. “I gave them their best year, I made $144 million for them in one year. $144 million dollars in one year, guess how much they gave me? They didn’t give me sh*t.
“What they did was they loaned me three towards my next album. It was like soon as they give you that money, you already owe them two more albums. They don’t give you anything. They advance you or they’ll give you something and have you pay for it later.”
The late rap icon is survived by his six children.
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